The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1887-06-11

SZ4 UU-all states Wner6 land is valua-
BILE. Divide Illinois into three dis
tricts and the average in the north was
S27.52; central, $24.65; southern, S1e.-
Stand highest, manufactures and
their home markets largest in the north,
and the price of land decreasing with
lower wages in the other sections.
In the Eastern States, with land worth
$40 per acre, the average was S2661;
Western States, with land about $50,
and fewer manufactures, 1923 SO; South
ern State, land SS.2T per acre and few
est manufactures, the lowest average
was found, $3.50.
The farm wages of California are
high, $3S.25, but small part of the
people being farmers, with large out
side demand for their wines, fruits,
etc. Mr.. George tries hard to help his
argument by showing the great fall of
wages in that State while its wealth
greatly increased, but the larger sums
of money carried there at an early day,
the craze of mining for gold and silver,
the collapse of some heavy operations
and the grasping of others by bold and
strong hands, make it an exceptional
and peculiar case.
Down at the foot of the scale on this
continent are the Digger Indians in Cal
ifornia. Land is plenty, it is common
property, nobody even pays tax or rent
for its use; but wages are not high, no.
body earns anything of consequence.
They eat snails and roots, and burrow
in the ground or creep half-clad into
wretched huts. So far as land is con-
cerned, they are nearest to Mr.. Georges
theory of any people, but the panacea
fails to work we'll among them.
We are told that wages are relative
ly the lowest where capital is most
abundant" and that "wages constant
ly tend to a minimum which will give
but bare living" But we have shown
wages twice as high in Massachusetts,
manufactures, where capital is larger,
as in North Carolina where there is less
capital, and that, in our whole country,
wages have increased and savings bank
deposits grown larger in the past twen-
ty years.
There has been meanwhile gradual
decrease of the hours of work, some
times by law and sometimes by change
of CUSTOM fact noteworthy and i'm
portant as showing the growth of a
spirit of fraternity as well as the power
and influence of labor.
All this shows progress from poverty.
Want and weakness, pride and greed
are painfully seen, but the increase of
poverty is not wrought into the very
heart and structure of our free civiliza
ton. The peoples step is up, not down.
Let us all join to clear the way, that the
upward march may be peacefully tri-
umphant.
Grave Faults and Inconsistency.
The grave fault in progress and
Poverty" is not the proposed remedy of
making land public property and levy
ing all taxes on it. This may be, and
doubtless is, wrong and absurd to the
great body of thoughtful persons, yet
any one has right to offer theory
for the common good, and absurd theo-
ries are usually forgotten after making
a brief stir. The coupling of poverty
with progress in such way as to fill the
minds of men with despair, and the
assertions which facts make worse than
worthless are its worst features.
We are told:
"The assumption of physical improve
ment in the race, within any time of
which we have any knowledge is utterly
without warrant. But the assump.
ton of mental improvement, which is
even more confidently and generally
made, Is still more preposterous. y
Everywhere the increasing intensity of
the struggle to live is draining the forces
which gain and maintain improvement.
In every civilized country, pauperism,
crime, insanity and suicides are increas-
ing. 4 In every highly civilized coun-
try the expectation Cor duration) of life
appears to be now diminishing. x 4 X
For what is now going on is not change
in the form OF religion, but the negation
and destruction of the ideas from which
religion springs. Christianity is not sim
ply clearing itself of superstition. but in
the popular mind it is dying at the root,
as the old paganisms were dying when
Christianity entered the world. And
nothing rises to take it's place. The fun
damental ideas of an intelligent Creator
and future life are, to the general mind,
rapidly weakening. y y The civilized
world is trembling on the verge of great
movement. Either it must be leap up
ward, which will open the way to advan.
ces yet undreamed of, or it must be a
plunge downward, which will carry us
back toward barbarism."
This fearful plunge downward would
surely come were not Henry George on
earth. He is fortunately here, and we
have only to follow his advice, tax the
land and tax nothing else, take that
land away from its owners without
compensation and make it public prop
erty, and we leap upward to advances
yet undreamed of
Sometimes CLEAN of light flashes
out. Here is fine summary which
recognizes the upward tendency of